Attributed to Samuel Wale, R.A. (Great Yarmouth 1721-1786 London)

Samuel Wale created headpieces for The Oxford Almanacks of 1757, 1758, 1760, 1762 and 1766. A design by him for the 1761 Almanack, now in the Ashmolean Museum, is a much more highly finished drawing when compared with the present drawing, which appears to be a first idea for the 1760 composition and omits a number of details that are found in Green's engraving. In the print two dogs, for example, are added as attributes of Aesculapius, emerging from the door of the temple. Although the present drawing is less finished than many by Wale, there seems to be no good reason why it should not be by him; Hanns Hammelmann refers to Wale's 'rapid, flowing sketches made before fully working out his designs' (Book-Illustrators in Eighteenth-Century England, 1975, p. 90).

The Radcliffe Infirmary opened to patients on St Luke's day, 18 October 1770. John Radcliffe (1650-1714), the Yorkshire-born physician whose estate funded the hospital, had died half a century earlier. The building, designed by Stiff Leadbetter, was begun in 1759 on land given by Thomas Rowney in 1758. Wale must have had access to Leadbetter's proposed design for the façade of the Hospital in order to execute this drawing.